Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Happy 100th, Chiang Ching-kuo

The KMT hosted a love-in for the memory of formerPresident Chiang Ching-kuo, son of Chiang Kai-shek... the Taipei Times reported:

Although they were sitting just an aisle away, former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) were worlds apart as they attended an event at the Presidential Office in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國). TV footage showed Lee being welcomed by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) at the auditorium before being escorted to his seat next to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). Many guests came over to greet Lee and shook hands.

The Taipei Times report, which discussed what was said and who was there, unfortunately missed all the fun stuff, but Taiwan News, as usual, put the saccharine falseness of the event into perspective with a hard-hitting editorial that not only identified everything that was missing, but also pointed out that this is just another chapter in the ongoing KMT internal saga of "Where does the Chiang charisma reside?":

The taxpayer financed commemorations for the late KMT leader have included a mountain of "pulp panegyrics" and exhibitions, a music concert, a website (www.cck.org.tw) and an official memorial service topped off by a 11,000 Chinese character essay by President Ma Ying-jeou, who is transparently positioning himself as his mentor's political successor.

In his address posted on Friday, Ma lauded the younger Chiang for launching the so-called "10 Major Construction Projects" in the early 1970s, improving the livelihood of the Taiwan people and creating an economic miracle" and "guiding democratic reform and lifting the freeze in cross-strait relations" with the People's Republic of China which is ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, which expelled Chiang Kai-shek's KMT regime from the China mainland in 1949.

Ironically, Ma's keynote account is more noteworthy for what it omits than for what it includes.

For example, readers will look in vain for any mention of the younger Chiang's role as the mastermind of the KMT martial law regime's security network in the 1950s and 1960s and his role as the hands-on executor of the "White Terror" purge of alleged "communists," Taiwan independence advocates, liberal dissidents and rivals for power that cost the lives of at least 5,000 mainlanders nd native Taiwanese, nearly 30,000 imprisoned political prisoners and the destruction of tens of thousands of families.

Readers will not see any mention of the massive "externalized" social, environmental, cultural and political costs of Chiang's touted "economic miracle" or the ever-present institutional corruption of the KMT party-state which later surfaced in its possession of over NT$200 billion in "ill-gotten" party assets.

Readers will also find no mention of the decades of struggle by Taiwan citizens for democracy and human rights and the suppression of the 1970s "Tangwai" democratic movement in the wake of the Dec. 10, 1979 "Kaohsiung Incident" engineered by the KMT secret police.

Readers will also hunt in vain for any mention of the Sept. 28, 1986 founding of the Democratic Progressive Party in defiance of martial law and this event's decisive impact on Chiang's correct decision to revoke the useless 38-year-old martial law decree on July 15, 1987.

The younger Chiang ran Daddy's security state during the martial law era. Later he brought Taiwanese into the KMT, but that was at least in part an attempt to establish a political base independent of the mainlander top crust that had supported Chiang Kai-shek. A notorious womanizer, he is also far more warmly remembered in Taiwan than his dictator father, and often gets the credit for the technology-based industrialization of the 1980s.

Ma, as the Taiwan News noted, was transparently positioning himself as the recipient of the Chiang charisma. In the quasi-religious KMT with its Return to Zion theology, this is important -- as I noted several years ago in a long post on charisma and the KMT that is still one of my favorites. I think this quote of New Testament scholar Robert Price is still quite apropo:

"Sometimes the death of the founder of a religious community eventuates in a succession dispute: who has the right to succeed him as pontiff of the faithful? The successor may be entitled to the same degree of authority the founder had, or it may be a delegated, lesser authority, that of a vicar or caretaker. In either case, it is not unusual for conflict to emerge between partisans of the founder's relatives on the one hand, and of his disciples on the other. It is one of the messiest aspects of what Max Weber has called "the routinization of charisma," whereby the followers of a charismatic founder have to do the best they can to hold things together after the death of the leader. He was a tough act to follow, and no one can quite fill his shoes, so no one particular effort to claim to do so passes unchallenged.[1]"

The Chiang legacy is a tough act to follow, but it appears that Ma will win almost by default -- Lee Teng-hui, Chiang Ching-kuo's vice president, is no longer in the KMT, while James Soong, who often positioned himself as a follower of Chiang Ching-kuo, also split off from the KMT and is now only a political shadow of his former looming self. Legislator John Chiang, the illegitimate son of the former President, is not a major player.

From my perspective the oddity of all this ceremony is that while it appears to be of supreme importance to individuals within the KMT as they jockey for position within the Party, the public does not appear particularly affected by it. In other words, voters appear to be more willing to treat the KMT as just another political party than the KMT itself is -- an important factor in its electoral success.

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10 comments:

It's a cheap shot to dismiss a commemoration for not criticizing what is being commemorated but Taiwan News has a habit of cheap shots.

While CCK did oversee the intelligence agencies, it was this history and relationship to the martial law administration that gave CCK the ability to pursuade the military elite to give up power.

It is natural for TIers and Americans to want to believe that generals like Hao Pei-tsun stepped back because of pressure from the DPP or the USA. The reality is that the generals stepped back because they respected CCK and believed CCK's assurances that it was in their best interests to do so. The generals would not have accepted any assurances from someone who was not one of their own.

While I don't advocate sanitizing anyone's history, I don't think you can deny that CCK was instrumental in today's Taiwan having a civilian government rather than some successor generalissimo.

The bookstores are filled with Chiang family material. There are stores in a few malls that have Chiang family stores, where they have been turned into Wharholian pop art. I can't tell if it is out of irony or devotion.

I do know that the KMT was heavily involved in publishing and Charlie Soong's old publishing company had been the sole provider of textbooks for decades. Is this a deliberate push to manufacture adoration or a simple business decision as the publishing companies are reacting to a market?

While I don't advocate sanitizing anyone's history, I don't think you can deny that CCK was instrumental in today's Taiwan having a civilian government rather than some successor generalissimo.CCk died before democratization. Hence it was not him but LTH who outmaneuvered the right-wingers and created our modern democracy.

CCK's acceptance of opposition parties and lifting of martial law was accepted by the far right because CCK promised not to make any real changes -- the new national security law was martial law in all but name. He was beaten by different social groups. It was the public, LTH, tangwai politicians, and pressure from US politicians and observers that forced the KMT to democratize. Had CCK lived longer, do you think Taiwan would be a democracy now? The idea is laughable -- one need only look at current trends.

...I don't think you can deny that CCK was instrumental in today's Taiwan having a civilian government rather than some successor generalissimo.Perhaps, but the issue is a matter of keeping perspective. CCK was the lesser dictator, and must be remembered for the continuing massacres of opposition leaders and scholars before anything else.

Some people may want to create CCK as a "Lyndon Johnson"-style reformer (referring to the US Civil Rights Act of 1964), but the reality is that this KMT apple didn't fall far from the tree.

Both CCK and Jonhson knew change was in the wind and made political moves and applied their considerable political capital to push through the changes. However, CCK did not do this for any humanitarian reasons.

I think CCK's decision reflects his satisfaction that he had sufficiently eliminated or crippled the so-called communist and the TI elements in Taiwan and could move toward further liberalization of the government. The KMT was secure (enough) on the island not to lose its authority even if challenged by an impoverished DPP, who didn't have, and may still not have, much policital or financial capital.

There are stores in a few malls that have Chiang family stores, where they have been turned into Wharholian pop art.I've seen these, too! Bobblehead CKS and CCK, t-shirts, desk toys in Taipei 101...

These are suggestive of post-modernization attitude that drains symbols and icons of their meaning (such as Che Guevara motifs on t-shirts and handbags), and mocks the ideological heft of these symbol's power.

I sense the cynicism in such toys (I've also seen a bobble-head Ma at 7-11), but, I too am wondering who's manufacturng them. After all Taiwan is arguably still in a pseudo-Modernist phase, so such iconic toys would carry much more meaning and still have greater impact, wouldn't they? In other words, they satisfy the local pop culture's desire for "cute" and "whimsical", while at the same time providing propaganda to revive the glory of the two dead dictators.

It should also be pointed out that CCK was a reluctant reformer who reacted to internal and external pressures when making his "liberalization" policies. The Chung-li incident and the following internal movements, compounded by the erosion of diplomatic support from cold war allies meant the KMT could not afford a hard line and people were figuring that out. The old guard was also dying out and being replaced by Taiwanese. If anything, it was a pragmatic move to ensure the KMT retained power and could avoid a Philippine style coup, which was fresh on the minds of many KMT stalwarts.

+1 Michael.The reality is the KMT fought tooth and nail against democracy and losing their grip on power.

Now they are doing the same thing, selling out the fragile democracy that is here to a foreign authoritarian regime because they are afraid of losing control of Taiwan again. Doesn't it strike you as odd the KMT is closer to the CCP than to the DPP?

Now they have the audacity to claim that it was the KMT that brought (and defends) democracy to Asia. What a joke.

These are suggestive of post-modernization attitude that drains symbols and icons of their meaning (such as Che Guevara motifs on t-shirts and handbags), and mocks the ideological heft of these symbol's power.

"I sense the cynicism in such toys (I've also seen a bobble-head Ma at 7-11), but, I too am wondering who's manufacturng them. After all Taiwan is arguably still in a pseudo-Modernist phase, so such iconic toys would carry much more meaning and still have greater impact, wouldn't they? In other words, they satisfy the local pop culture's desire for "cute" and "whimsical", while at the same time providing propaganda to revive the glory of the two dead dictators."

That's exactly what I was thinking, but I am curious how they are being consumed. I would love to locate and interview the company that produces these things.

The debate about why Chiang liberalized is one I doubt any of us can answer. Like many events, it may have had multiple causes. Perhaps he both felt pressured by the US and events in the Philippines, and at the same time felt guilty about his earlier role in his father's dictatorship.

At some point in judging politicians you just have to pay more attention to deeds than to motivations. God alone knows their hearts. Your job is to decide whether to vote for them (or for those who honor them), not where they should spend eternity.

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